In an effort to help the Valley's business community navigate through the COVID-19 crisis, the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber is launching a new initiative, EMERGE, to provide direct assistance on a variety of topics and matters through the expertise of the team, members of the organization's Board of Directors and Chamber members.

The Chamber has been monitoring and communicating to its members important information about resources that are available during this time and also maintaining a frequently updated list of those resources at regionalchamber.com/covid-19. Now, through EMERGE, and with the support of the Regional Chamber's Board of Directors--led by Don Kline, president of the Great Lakes Group for Mercy Health--we stand ready to open our virtual doors to any business that needs assistance with topics ranging from SBA loans and tax information, to laws governing unemployment and interpreting state and national orders. Our team can directly assist with a variety of needs, while members of our Board and other experts are offering additional insight as chairs for each of our teams.

Tom Humphries, president & CEO at the Chamber, said, "We are committed to providing our business community with the resources needed to EMERGE and recover from this crisis, successfully. There is a lot of information out there, and businesses may be confused or not know how to sort through it all. We can help with that and many other issues that may be occurring."

The primary areas in which the Chamber may assist include finance, accounting, law, insurance, business, healthcare, government affairs and marketing.

Ted Schmidt, PNC regional president for Youngstown and a member of the Chamber's Board, is chairing the finance team and notes the importance of the Chamber offering this service to the business community.

"This is an unprecedented time, so it's understandable that many businesses may need help navigating these uncharted waters," Schmidt said. "This program will help local businesses stay strong, so they have a better chance of remaining viable throughout and long after the crisis."

No matter the question, or if a business isn't sure what area it may fall into, we encourage them to call nonetheless so that our team can make every effort to help during this challenging time. We will work through this. We will help businesses through this. Together, We Will EMERGE.